Part 1

Peter Pettigrew's Prisoner

By NELSON S. BOND

Pettigrew captured a strange prisoner; one whose methods of sabotage were unique. He had a weird dust in a bag....

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Amazing Stories July 1942. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

"So much," concluded Sergeant McCurdle, "for delayed action bombs. Now, as to incendiaries, Mr. Pettigrew--"

("_Halt, you cowardly cur!_" rasped Peter Pettigrew to the sinister figure creeping from a dark covert of his imagination. "_Advance and give the countersign. What? You don't know it? I thought not! Then take_ that, _you dirty Nazi spy, you! And that, and_ that, _and_ THAT!")

"_Mister_ Pettigrew!"

The daydream of Peter Pettigrew, student Air Warden, popped like a penny balloon. He started from his bench, pale eyes blinking bewilderedly. The enemy agent had disappeared. This was no blacked-out and vital defense zone, no strategically important military objective, but the warm, bright, all-too-familiar lecture room of the city Armory. All about him, giggling at his confusion, sat his fellow students, more than four score strong. Glaring at him wrathfully was the regular Army non-com assigned to training this volunteer brigade.

"Well, Mr. Pettigrew," repeated Sergeant McCurdle in acid tones, "if you've _quite_ finished your little nap--?"

"Y-yes, sir!" gulped Peter Pettigrew apologetically. "I--I'm sorry, sir. I must have dozed off."

"In the Army," growled McCurdle ominously, "soldiers who doze off wake up in the clink! I'd like to see you--But never mind that now. Before you were so rudely awakened, Mr. Pettigrew, we were discussing bomb defense. Now, suppose _you_ tell us the proper way of handling an incendiary bomb. Let's assume you are guarding a wooden warehouse filled with highly inflammable military stores.

"An incendiary shell scores a direct hit; concussion knocks you out momentarily. When you come to, you learn that the bomb has exploded and is scattering gouts of flame around the building. What do you do?"

"I--er--I run to the water-hose," said Peter, "and turn the nozzle to fine spray--"

"The water system is broken," said Sergeant McCurdle helpfully. "_Saboteurs_ have slashed the hose to ribbons."

"Then I--I get buckets and sand, and--"

"Fifth columnists," challenged McCurdle, "have mixed gunpowder into the sand."

"Oh!" said Peter Pettigrew bleakly. "They have? In that case, I--I call the fire department, send out a general alarm, and attempt to fight a delaying action until help gets there. With chemicals, perhaps, or--"

"The fire extinguishers," howled McCurdle gleefully, "have been diluted with soda pop! The alarm siren was stolen by Quislings! The telephone wires are cut! The force of the explosion broke the windows, and wind is fanning the blaze!

"The floor is scorching beneath your feet, the walls are ablaze, tongues of flame are licking at precious boxes of _matériel_! Think, Mr. Pettigrew! Think hard! Many lives and much valuable property depend on your prompt action. What do you do? What is the first thing your hand must seek?"

* * * * *

The room was warm, but a cold perspiration moistened Peter Pettigrew's brow. His eyes roved, his collar strangled him. His tongue was a wad of cotton.

"Why--er--" he muttered feverishly.

"_Wrong!_" Sergeant McCurdle seized the word, worried it as a terrier worries a rubber bone. "_Never_ wire! Wire is the last thing you should touch, Pettigrew. Under conditions such as those described, wire would be melting-hot. It would burn the flesh off your bones!

"No--" He stared at the smaller man disdainfully--"No, Mr. Pettigrew, I fear you would be of no use in an emergency of this nature. As a matter of fact, I don't think you belong in this group. Some men, Pettigrew, simply don't fit. You seem to be one of them. Why don't you drop out? Turn in your uniform and enter some other branch of civilian service? Canteen work, for instance, or knitting sweaters--?"

Someone behind Peter Pettigrew tittered, and someone else muttered, "That's right! If a man can't do a man's work he ought to--" Peter's lower lip trembled, and the stalwart figure of Sergeant McCurdle danced before his eyes. He shook his head doggedly.

"But--but I _like_ this work, Sergeant. I _want_ to be an Air Raid Warden."

McCurdle's shrug was eloquent.

"Well, it's Uncle Sam's headache. If you persist in wasting the government's time and money, I can't prevent it." To the others he said, "That's all for tonight, folks. We're having a practice blackout at midnight, remember. City-wide. Every Warden must be at his post by then. You all know where your locations are? All right--hop to 'em! Eh? What? Oh, _you_ again, Pettigrew? Well, what do you want now?"

"Excuse me, sir," said Peter meekly, "but--what was my mistake? What _was_ the first thing I should have done?"

"Done?" thundered Sergeant McCurdle. "Why, any fool knows you should have--er--er--" His brows furrowed, then cleared miraculously. "Don't try to make _me_ do your thinking for you, Pettigrew! That's _your_ assignment, not mine. Think it out. And see that you've arrived at the correct answer by our next meeting. All right--class dismissed!"

* * * * *

"No hose," said Peter Pettigrew to himself, "no sand or siren or telephone. Fire spreading rapidly. Warehouse is filled with inflammable supplies--Oh, it's no use! McCurdle was right. I guess I'm just a--a misfit!"

The last word came out "mzzglmmp," punctuated, as it was, by something suspiciously akin to a sigh ... or a sob.

There is an estimated total of two hundred and sixty thousand volunteer Air Raid Wardens now training for civilian defense duty in the United States. Of this number, about two hundred and fifty-nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine had greater aptitude for their jobs than did Peter Pettigrew.

Two strikes had been called on this unhappy child of misfortune, and the Celestial Umpire's arm was already rising on the third, when Peter wailed entrance into this mad world. To begin with, as a specimen of manhood Peter Pettigrew was a washout. Padded shoulders helped conceal his spindling frame and built-up heels added a futile inch to his diminutive stature, but no aids, mechanical or sartorial, could ever remove the anemic pallor from his complexion, lend distinction to an unruly fuzz of taffy-colored hair, or cleanse his eyes of the pathetic wistfulness which mirrored his personality. Peter's physical counterpart was the photo labelled _Before_ in the "BE STRONG LIKE ME!" ads.

Moreover, Peter was shy. Terribly, horribly, inconceivably shy of everything and anything that walked, swam, or flew on, under, or above the surface of the earth. He gulped when he talked, and never raised his voice to a degree louder than a timid bleat. Strangers frightened him ... acquaintances embarrassed him ... and he had no friends. He turned every hue of the rainbow when so much as noticed by members of the fair sex, and ate always in cafeterias in order to avoid the dread task of ordering from a waitress.

His position in life was just what you might expect; he was the smallest imaginable cog in an organization so huge that to all save his immediate clerical companions he was but another name on the payroll.

He earned enough to live and eat and visit a theatre once a week and support a second cousin in Oregon whom he had never seen in his life, but whose demanding letters threw him into a perfect frenzy of obligation. He dressed soberly, let subway guards shove him around without protest, and permitted himself nothing more highly intoxicant than an occasional Dr. Zipper.

Thus Peter Pettigrew. Or thus, to be more accurate, the Peter Pettigrew who slipped his brief and unobtrusive way before the public eye.

* * * * *

But--there was _another_ Peter Pettigrew! An unknown and unsuspected Peter Pettigrew in whose veins raced the fire of heroes, behind whose mild and tawny eyes burned slumbering volcanoes. This was the man--the laughing, taunting, daring champion of derring-do--whom Peter dreamed himself to be. A questing knight with thews of steel and agile mind and tongue of rapier wit. This was the man whom Peter was when, in dead of night, his meagre body tossing restlessly on bunchy kapok, his untrammeled soul rode the magic highways of Dream-world in search of dark adventure. This man was Peter when, blackness engulfing a lean, tense figure straining forward in his movie seat, Peter's hungry heart followed a shaft of silver brilliance to identify itself with whatever solitary soul was worst beset by the encroaching forces of evil.

This was the strange, new Peter Pettigrew who _now_, a sliver of darkness in the shadow of a doorway, now smiled and hurled defiance at the hordes of foes arraigned against him.

"_So!_" hissed Peter mockingly. "_So! You think you'd like to blow up the Armory, would you? Well, we'll see about that, you dirty, sneaky old Japs, you! Brrrp-brrrp-brrrp_--" His small frame trembled with excitement as he swept the gray street with imaginary Tommy-gun fire--"_there's no use crying for mercy now!_" laughed Peter triumphantly. "_You should have thought of that before you attacked us! Oh, it's_ knives _now? No, you don't! Remember Pearl Harbor! Brrrrrrp_--"

"Cut out that damned racket! Stop it!" The roaring voice sheared a path through Peter's concentration, dealing a sudden end to his tiny, private drama. "What the hell do you think you're doing, anyhow? Who--Oh! I might have known!"

Only gloom masked the sick mantle of Peter's crimson embarrassment. His heart within him shriveled to the size of a raisin, and leaden butterflies fluttered in his stomach.

"H-hello, Sergeant McCurdle," he ventured weakly.

The Army man, more fiercely militant than ever, with his Colt .44 an ugly lump at his thigh, his gas mask over his shoulder, glared at the little volunteer malevolently.

"What in blazes is the meaning of all this noise and confusion, Pettigrew? Don't you know--?"

"I was--I was just pretending, sir," writhed Peter.

"Pretending what? Pretending to be a steam calliope or something? Anyhow, Pettigrew--" A sudden thought struck the non-com; he scowled at his wristwatch. "It's two minutes before twelve! Why are you still snooping around the Armory? Why aren't you at your post?"

"I--" began Peter. "I--"

* * * * *

"Never mind," interrupted McCurdle. "Never mind the alibis, Pettigrew. Disobedience of orders in an emergency--that's enough for me! You can turn in your uniform _now_! And goodbye, Mr. Pettigrew!"

"B-but--" faltered Peter.

"And," appended Sergeant McCurdle, "good riddance!"

"B-but this _is_ my post, Sergeant!" wailed Peter. "I was assigned to guard this sector during the trial blackout!"

"Y-you _what_?" This time it was McCurdle whose voice cracked on a dismal note.

"I was assigned to guard this sector, sir--"

"Don't repeat, Pettigrew!" The baffled topkick gave vent to a groan. "I heard you the first time. _You!_ On duty at this post! Of all the muddle-headed assignments--Damn it, man, this Armory is one of the most vital military objectives in the whole city!"

"It--it is?" piped Peter with sudden eagerness.

"Perhaps _the_ most important! Pettigrew, do you know the entire basement of this building is filled with gunpowder and dynamite? Enough to blow the surrounding neighborhood to Kingdom Come! And within three city blocks of here stand the City Hall, the Federal Building, two factories engaged in war armaments production, and a Marine barracks!"

"Th-there are?" gulped Peter with less eagerness.

"And of all men," despaired McCurdle, "_you_ had to be assigned to this post. And in less than a minute the warning will be sounded. Well--" He shrugged--"It's too late now. It's your pigeon. You've drawn your equipment?"

"Equip--Oh, yes, sir! Right here!" Peter patted a gas mask container at his side and, rather more gingerly, the automatic at his hip. "I'm all-ready, sir."

"Very well, Pettigrew. From now on--" The topkick had to raise his voice to a bellow to make himself heard over the banshee blast that had suddenly wakened and howled from a hundred simultaneous sources--"it's up to you! Carry on!"

And as the gray gloom of the city night was suddenly engulfed in ebon black, as feverish eyes of electric and neon blinked out one by one over a city grimly readying itself for any eventuality, Sergeant McCurdle moved into the darkness--and was gone!

* * * * *

At first his disappearance was a relief to the small would-be Air Warden. Then, as the ear-shattering sirens died into muted silence, as McCurdle's footsteps pattered off into murkiness, a vast, enswaddling stillness descended upon Peter Pettigrew--and with it came stark realization of his perfect aloneness. In Stygian gloom he murmured, "Oh, my goodness! I'm all alone!" and raised a trembling hand before his eyes. It was a vague, white blob in the darkness. Tingling fingers of panic clutched at Peter's nerves, and his ganglea hummed like harpstrings. "Oh, my soul!" he jittered. "It's so _dark_!"

Civic authorities had deliberately chosen a moonless night for this experiment. Mother Nature had collaborated by veiling the sky with a thick overcast, making the night starless as well. The street upon which Peter stood was as black as a whale's belly. Except for--

"Oh, mercy me!" bleated Peter, "this will never do!"

And his panic subsiding in the face of this unallowable thing, he scurried down the street to a dwelling beneath the lowered blinds of which escaped one lone, betraying slant of light. Hastily he ascended its steps, more hastily rapped on the door.

"Lights out!" he cried. "Air alert! Lights--"

The door flew open suddenly, hurling a blazing flood of forbidden illumination into Peter's eyes. A figure loomed in the doorway; the figure of a man whose shoulders seemed to stop the entrance, who towered threateningly above Peter.

"Hey?" roared this outraged Titan. "What's this all about? Whatcha tryin' to--?"

"--out!" ended Peter feebly. "L-lights out, if you don't mind, please, mister. It's an--an alert--"

There came a sudden, menacing _snap!_ and Peter closed his eyes, wondering dimly which arm or leg was broken and why it didn't hurt. Then stunningly:

"Sure, Warden!" came a husky whisper. "I fergot. I was list'nin' to the Tchi-cargo Symphony an' fergot all about the blackout. I'm sorry."

And Peter opened his eyes to discover that the house was in jet blackness, and the big man was softly shutting the door!

He turned and stumbled down the steps. But where he had been nervous before, he was now aflame with a strange and new sensation. A wild, heady sensation--the intoxication of power! For the first time in his mousy life, Peter Pettigrew had issued an order. And that order had been obeyed!

Self-confidence, a feeling so rare in his past as to have been non-existent, swept through him like a hot torrent. His head lifted proudly; he trod on fluffy clouds. He drew a long, tremulous breath.

"Warden!" he murmured happily. "_Warden_ Pettigrew!"

* * * * *

Then, as if something within him had been long waiting this moment, there came to pass the rebirth of Peter Pettigrew. The old Peter died, and occupant of his body was the cool, cagey, daring and resourceful Peter with thews of steel and heart of flame.

And the renascent Peter, viewing this situation, was not satisfied.

"Too dark!" decided the new Peter. "Too dangerously dark. _They_ might try something. I ought to have cat's eyes. Now, let me see--Aah! I have it!"

And suddenly bethinking himself of the spectacles he wore to protect his eyes against harmful rays when he took an ultra-violet "sun bath" every week, he drew the shaded lenses from his pocket and slipped them over his eyes.

It did not matter that the glasses--speaking from a purely physical standpoint--could not conceivably strengthen Peter's vision. He _thought_ they did, and that is what really counts. Great is the influence of mind over matter.

With increased assurance, he stalked down the silent street to assume his post of duty before the Armory's portal. And it was then he saw the sinister stranger.

* * * * *

The stranger was hurrying up the street toward Peter. This was not, in itself, cause for alarm. Thousands of good, solid, liberty-loving Americans had doubtless been caught off guard by the wail of the sirens. But _this_ man, who seemed to cling to the darkest shadows of an everywhere-dark road, made no sound as he walked! He glided forward noiselessly. Moreover, his diminutive but chunky frame bent beneath the burden of a heavy gunnysack that might have contained--

What? wondered Peter Pettigrew. Anything! Anything at all, he decided. Bombs, hand grenades, ground glass! His jaw tightened; he stepped forward.

"Just a moment, there!" he piped peremptorily. "Who are you? What are you do--?"

But the sinister stranger either did not hear him or chose to disregard his challenge. He had paused, now, before the very door of the Armory, taken from somewhere and scanned what appeared to be a notebook. He nodded his head pleasedly and turned to the building. The rap of his knuckles was soft in the silence; the door swung open and he vanished.

Peter sprang into action. This was all wrong! This was his post; if it were learned that he had permitted anyone to effect entrance into the Armory unquestioned he would lose his precious Wardenship. Perhaps even--Peter quaked--since this incident had occurred in line of duty, he would be tried by a military court, found guilty, and shot at sunrise!

On legs that felt suddenly hollow, he raced forward, hurled himself at the Armory door and pounded frantically. A uniformed private of the regular Army opened it for him. The soldier looked faintly surprised.

"What--Oh, hello, there! You're the warden on duty here, aren't you? What's up? Blackout over?"

"It's an all night practice," snapped Peter, "as you ought to know. But never mind that now. That stranger--who was he? Where did he go?"

"Huh?" The soldier stared at him curiously. "Is it a gag, buddy? What stranger?"

"The one," rasped Peter, "you just admitted. He refused to answer my challenge--"

"Are you crazy?" The soldier sniggered drowsily and leaned his rifle against the wall. "Nobody came through this doorway, bud, except you."

Quick suspicion fanned to a fiercer blaze in Peter's bosom. Then his hunch had been right! The sinister stranger _was_ an enemy agent, and this soldier in Uncle Sam's khaki was a dupe, a hireling, a Fifth Columnist! With a swift movement he grasped the guard's rifle, levelled it at its owner.

"So!" hissed Peter Pettigrew, patriot. "You thought you could get away with it, eh? Well, the jig's up! Over my dead body you'll pull one of your dastardly Nazi tricks! Not a move, now! Move a muscle and I--I'll shoot--"

And his finger tensed on the trigger. But the other man's face did not draw into the lines of hatred and violence Peter half expected. Instead, the soldier grinned amiably at him.

"Okay, buddy," he chuckled. "Enjoy yourself. Quite a card, ain't you? Well--" He yawned prodigiously--"'at's okay by me. I'm gettin' ... kinda ... sleepy. Think I'll snatch ... forty winks. Wake me up ... when the alert's over ... over...."

He slumped onto a bench, and fell fast asleep!

* * * * *

For a moment fantastically long, Peter stared at him incredulously. Then recollection of a more immediate problem than this flooded back on him. There was a mystery here, but elsewhere in the building was a skulking spy whose plot Peter must nip in the bud.

He wheeled and hastened into the drill-room. No one there but a drowsy radioman, nodding over his transmitter. A dozen doors opened off the drill-room. Peter, scurrying from one to another, noted with subconscious approbation that each room with windows to the outer street was darkened. Only the inner chambers of the Armory were lighted.

But of the sack-bearing stranger there was no trace. Room after room was deserted, save for here a detail of slumbering reserves, there an Intelligence officer cat-napping at his desk. This latter raised his head when Peter roused him, repeated muzzily, "Whuza? Lil man with a bag? Uh-uh. Di'n see'm--" and went back to sleep.

Peter wasted no more time upstairs. The basement was "out of bounds" for all civilians and, indeed, for all soldiers save those specifically assigned to guard it, but this was no time to adhere to normal regulations. Peter raced toward the store-rooms, and was just in time to see, as he found the top of the staircase, a tableau on the landing below that forever justified his fears.

The little man was there! He was tiptoeing silently toward the unsuspecting back of a guard assigned to watch the stores. As he crept he fumbled at the mouth of his gunnysack and--remarkable verity Peter could scarcely believe--he was humming a soft tune!

Peter knew what he should do. He _should_ shout aloud to warn the soldier. But when he opened his mouth it felt as if he had swallowed a throatful of warm glue; his lips were a pair of adhesive plasters muting a larynx frozen with terror. The best he could manage was a tiny, whimpering bleat.

It was not enough. The soldier, as though warned by some belated, intuitive sense, whirled just as the interloper gained his side. But his eyes never recognized peril, for at that instant the little man's hand flew from the bag, hurling something squarely into the guard's face.

And--the soldier dropped his rifle, yawned noisily, rubbed his eyes with clenched fists, staggered to a seat, and fell fast asleep at his post!

In that moment, Peter Pettigrew understood all. Now he knew why the guard at the outer gate had not stopped--had not even remembered!--the stranger. He knew, too, why every defender of this building save himself was lost in Dreamland. The stranger's bag was filled with a new and dreadful weapon. A powder with the power of drugging victims into heavy slumber!

Anaesthesia! But if that were so, it was useless to pursue the little man who now, having glanced once again into his notebook--a leaflet of instructions, no doubt--was moving stealthily down the corridor. One whiff of the substance and he, like the others, would--"But, no!" squealed Peter Pettigrew. For a thought had struck him with swift, encouraging force. Over his right shoulder was slung that which made him invulnerable to the spy's treacherous weapon. His gas mask!

* * * * *

To think, with this reborn Peter, was to act. In an instant he had whipped the mask from its sack and snuggled it about his face. Sucking filtered air through its _kobold_-like mouthpiece lent the final touch of isolation from worldliness--a process begun with the donning of the tinted spectacles. But protected, now, from fumes and glooms alike, hand resting on the comforting grip of his automatic, Peter crept down the staircase.

The door through which the stranger had vanished was labelled POWDER ROOM: DANGER! in bold scarlet. As Peter drew nearer this door he was astonished to hear a faint muttering. Peering cautiously around the door-jamb he discovered this was the stranger murmuring petulantly to himself as he scowled at his little book.

"It says," frowned the stocky man, "three more. But where in the name of Hypnos _are_ they? There's no one else in here. Another infernal mix-up in the O.D.D., that's what! I wish they'd get things straightened out--"